okay, this is starting to get a little Eyes Wide Shut...

Runaways #1 (2003)

Chosen by me from my shelf because I reviewed the brand new Runaways (in good shops and others like mine right now) yesterday.

Covert art by Jo Chen

What if you found out your parents were supervillains?

Such a great simple hook. And the amount of kids whose eyes would light up when I told them that was the premise to sell the small manga-ish digest they used to publish was amazing.

Part of a Marvel initiative called Tsunami (terrible name) designed to combat the increasing market share of the massive influx of Japanese and korean books appearing in America, this was the only real lasting success (though Mystique and Sentinel were very good) even if it struggled to sell month to month (it was cancelled and relaunched within it's first couple of years).

The first issue is the usual strong Brian K. Vaughn start. He elegantly and concisely introduces each of the six kids and their parents so that they are all immediately distinct and unique. Not just from each other but also within their position in the general Marvel Universe.

Ably partnered with Adrian Alphona, on one of his first comic books, his art is crisp and  Christina Strain's colours bright and poppy setting this up as a sunny california cousin to the normal east coast super-hero shenanigans.

And a kicker of a cliffhanger (another Vaughn staple) that even I, who has read it many times before, had to continue on for a few pages before doing this review.

what do you call a runaway with nowhere left to go?

Runaways #1 (2017)

Chosen by me from the new releases out today.

Runaways never quite got the following it deserved. And Marvel tried, putting some great talent on board once the original creators had gone but the main premise had, ahem, run it's course and it floundered a little despite still being pretty solid.

It's hard to say from this one issue if it can recapture what made the Vaughn and Alphona run so magical but this is a very confidant start.

That said it has some problems as a first issue. It presumes a knowledge of the previous stuff that despite filling you in on the details feels a little confusing.

And only three of the Runaways appear. Which probably means this will read much better as a trade.

However, it does allow the issue to focus on one character in particular and dig beneath her skin.

The look at Nico's life is sad and complicated. It plays on her history, including with the fun book A-Force. It does a good job at getting into Chase's current mindset too. So if the format of this run is to zone in like this on each Runaway maybe it can be forgiven.

Kris Anka's art is not quite as iconic and instantly adorable as Alphona's but has a clean sense of storytelling and keeps the body types and faces distinctive and clear.

A must read if you're a fan of the old series, but maybe a little too inside baseball if you know nothing about them.